It was one of several anecdotes peppered liberally into Tite’s press conference but his recounting of a conversation with Carlos Bianchi sent a few jigsaw pieces falling into place. “He once told me: ‘Tite, one of the great assets of a great team is to be mentally strong and have the capacity to be balanced and focused,’” the Brazil manager said. “That really got imprinted on my mind. We should have some common sense: neither euphoria, nor the fear of losing. Keeping your head cool and knowing you have a good collective performance.”

Everything made perfect sense. Tite’s calmness and knack for man-management have been revelatory in this World Cup and the two years before it; he has instilled a sense of clarity, feathered with a little lightness, into this Brazil team and it was little surprise to hear he learned from the best. Bianchi was renowned, during his spells managing Vélez Sarsfield and Boca Juniors, for his leadership skills and a club director once put it best by lauding his ability to instruct players “to put the toilet in the bathroom and the oven in the kitchen”. It captures the Tite process precisely: everyone accountable; everything in its correct spot.

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The impression, a little more than 24 hours before Brazil were due to kick off against Belgium, was of total authority. Tite has been the most impressive figure among the managers at this World Cup, exuding gravitas and making encounters with the media feel like exchanges of ideas and information rather than exercises in secrecy and caution. Plenty is asked of him and plenty is given: after the win over Mexico on Monday he provided a detailed exposition of his defensive strategy, explaining how a tightly oiled side marks sectors before ball or man; here he deconstructed the goals from that game in detail and mused at length about the emotional energy required to take penalties. If the idea is to compress so much openness and candour into half an hour that nobody has the energy to demand more, it is a sound one.

“I’m going to make a confession here,” began another of his stories. “After the match against Serbia – I don’t usually talk too much in the dressing room afterwards because it’s not the time – I gave [Roberto] Firmino a hug and said: ‘You’re doing brilliantly, but I’m sorry, a coach needs to select according to the circumstances.’ He said: ‘Don’t worry, I’m very happy.’ Well, he didn’t say ‘very’ …”

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That last sentence was accompanied by a smile and a wink. Firmino did not get on the pitch in the Serbia game, hence Tite’s special attention, but scored two minutes after his introduction against Mexico. It adds to the sense Tite has mastered the impossible, managing Brazil’s competing forces and fostering a club-side mentality that, allied to the natural talent at his disposal, creates a formidable beast.

Perhaps the definitive evidence is that he seems to have tamed Neymar. It says something that the forward has turned heads more through the economy of his performances than their effervescence; Tite talked up his “sense of teamwork, the best virtue” and talked up his appetite for “participating collectively”, perhaps aware that heavy praise can sometimes find a way of self-fulfilling. His philosophy is broadly that a solid, rigorously organised defensive and midfield structure lays the groundwork for – “incentivises”, in his words – those higher up the pitch to work their magic. Everyone is buying into the plan; those last two wins have been low-maintenance, relatively low-key and entirely comfortable.

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In what could have been a largely esoteric diversion, Tite was asked by a Middle East-based journalist to reflect on his spell managing Al-Ain, the Emirati club, for a season in 2007. Back then he was a decade and a half into his managerial career but he replied in typical detail that, given the freedom to test his preferred lines of play, he developed his football philosophy there. He was away from the smothering circus of Brazilian football – or so went the implication – and could perfect his defensive system, trialling two lines of four and working on cohesion. It was a year that influenced him profoundly but, given he had been rattling through clubs at a tremendous rate back home, could not have felt at the time like a petri dish for leading Brazil ever closer to a sixth World Cup.

If Belgium are overcome then it will begin to look overwhelmingly likely that those hours outside the spotlight were well spent. “I stopped two weeks ago and told the team: ‘You must believe in the intense way of practising we have … so keep up the good work, we need a full team, mentally strong, and I can feel it,’” he said. “The biggest challenge of a World Cup is fortitude. The pressure is immense, extraordinary.”

They are handling it so far. Bianchi once said: “Orders are orders and they have to be clear but you have to give them with tact.” On the pitch and away from it, Tite’s Brazil appear to have struck an equally agreeable balance.